Foul Fumes
by DragonMaiden
Summary: Blood of 12 people ran down the gutter. The man in black kept laughing. But as he was dragged away his laughing stopped and the insane grin left his face. Peter's remains were in a puddle-he was dead. They couldn’t question him now. Sirius Black screame


I wrote this for a school paper.  I'm not sure if my teacher is familiar with Harry Potter, so some of it you probably already know.  I haven't gotten a grade on it yet, but those who read it liked it.  I hope you do!  I don't think I really need a disclaimer, do you?

November 1

London, England

          "All right, you're coming with me, you sick twisted b-" stuttered the nearest Hit Wizard shakily.  The man dressed in black just kept laughing madly, pointing at the puddle of blood and fragments of flesh on the pavement in front of him.  People all around them were screaming, wailing, and crying with anguish and terror.  Blood of twelve other people ran down the gutter in the London street.  The man in black kept laughing, even though he was now completely surrounded with Ministry officials.  

          Finally, as they were dragging him away from the macabre scene, his laughing abruptly stopped, and the insane grin dropped from his face.  The cracked street was emitting foul fumes from the sewer below.  Peter Pettigrew (or his remaining fragments, since that was all that was left of him) lay in a puddle near the edge of the crack.  He was dead.  They couldn't question him now.

          Sirius Black screamed.  _I didn't do this!_ he thought frantically, _I didn't!_  His wife... she was six months pregnant... Where was she?  What could he do now?  They were taking him away... to the worst place on Earth.  He was going to Azkaban.  Going to Azkaban for killing twelve Muggles and a wizard—only he hadn't.  Peter—his friend—it had been him.

          Sirius saw the vision of what had just happened play before his eyes:

          _"Lily and James, Sirius!  How could you?" Peter cried pathetically.  As Sirius moved toward him, Peter suddenly blew up.  He just blew up.  He had tried to kill Sirius, but he had exploded himself instead.  Sirius was knocked to the ground and into a street lamp.  When he came to his feet the horrible sight met his eyes, and Peter was nowhere to be found... at first...  but when Sirius saw the puddle of blood where Peter had been standing, he started to laugh.  He knew other people had just been killed, but the thought of Peter-the-idiot undoing himself was just too much to take without laughing.  He thought he was so smart, so damn powerful because he had a Master, and he couldn't even finish his job without blundering things up like always._

          _Lily and James, Sirius... how could you...  _Peter's words though his head again.  That damn liar.  He didn't have a pregnant wife to be worried about.  All he really had was his Master and all of his lies.  Peter had given away the secret about where James and Lily were to the most evil wizard there ever was.  Everyone except for four people on Earth knew that Peter had really been the Secret-Keeper: James, Lily, Peter, and Sirius.  Everyone else thought Sirius was, even their other friends.  And—go figure—Peter turned out to be the traitor who turns his best friends in.  And Sirius had been the one who had convinced James and Lily to change their plans.  So it was his fault.  All his fault...

          After Peter had spoken those words he had tried to throw a deadly spell at Sirius, since Sirius had found out the truth about him as soon as he had found Lily and James dead at their house.  He had instead blown up himself and twelve other innocent people.  He never was good in duels.

          Sirius screamed again.  As he did the impact of what looked like had happened hit him with full force.  Every soul on this street thought he had done this.  He would be put away in Azkaban for the rest of his life, and never again see his wife.  Or their baby.  He fainted.

The smell of dirt greeted his nose when he awoke.  He blinked his eyes thickly as he attempted to make out his surroundings.  Cold splashes of rain on his unshaven face told him that he was definitely outside.  He tried to move and realized that he was tied up.  He lay on his side in the dirt, his feet and hands bound in cords.  He struggled to sit up and instead rolled over onto his stomach.  The sight that met his eyes caught his breath in his throat.

          He was on the edge of a cliff that was hovering hundreds of feet above the sea.  The black water swirled beneath him, its velvety obsidian surface waiting to swallow him without a trace should he fall off.  He quickly slid away from the edge of the cliff on his stomach, like a snake.  He gasped audibly at what he saw on his other side.

          A huge fortress, taller than the tallest building he had ever seen.  The tip seemed to vanish into the gray storm clouds hovering in the black, November night sky.  It seemed to be nothing but points—black, obsidian spears jutting out of the floating dirt island and into the sky.  This was Azkaban.  The darkest sense of gloom surrounded the place like a sick plague, and it made Sirius's breath catch in his throat.  He hacked a cough to get his lungs working again.  

Suddenly he sensed something coming up behind him—something that seemed to suck all his emotions out of him except for the deepest feeling of anguish and despair.  A sudden wave of cold hit him with the force of a million gallons of ice water.  He fell to the ground, not wanting to turn around to see what was making him feel this way.  His hands inched towards his belt for his wand, but it wasn't there.  He slowly looked up.  

He saw an eight-foot tall figure cloaked in black.  A hood covered its face and every inch of its body.  A Dementor.  The guardians of Azkaban.  They could suck every single happy thought out of you and leave you just a shell of the most horrible memories of your life.  More of them were walking up now.  Sirius's body shook with fear as he fought to stay conscious.   One of them waved its hands and Sirius's body lifted off the ground.  His feet were untied and he was stood upright.  The Dementors shoved him towards the fortress's huge front doors.  

He drifted in and out of consciousness as they dragged him further and further into the fortress.  All he remembered were the flights and flights of stairs.  His feet dragged and he stumbled with every step.  The only thing keeping him moving were the Dementors behind him, forcing him ahead of them with their powers to drain him of any defense.  Finally, when he thought from he couldn't possibly climb another inch, they shoved him through a metal gate door.  They walked him down a short hallway, cells on each side lined with bars.  No one was in them.  They shoved him into the cell at the very end of the hall, and then closed the door with a clang.  They left him without a word (obviously, since they couldn't speak—not any human language, anyway).  When they reached the entranceway two Dementors stayed behind the group and stood guard outside the door.  The others disappeared.  

Sirius Black crumpled on the dusty floor of his cell.  There was only one window, high above his head, which didn't keep out the rain well at all.  The only light in the entire hallway was the torch at the entranceway.  A cot, a table, and a chair were the only things in his cell besides him.  He wouldn't need anything else; he had the rest of his life to spend here and go completely crazy, just like every other prisoner who was here.  Those who didn't die, of course.  

Sirius Black managed to crawl onto the dusty cot.  He covered his face with his shaking hands, and then ran them through his black hair.  He wasn't even twenty-one, and this was all he had to look forward to for the rest of his life.  Classic tragedy: popular guy in school—the tall, handsome, funny one—the one who everyone just _loved_... ends up being responsible for his two best friends' deaths, blamed for thirteen murders he didn't commit, and thrown in prison for life.  But no, this was no ordinary prison—this place made you über-psycho in less than a day.  He was responsible for all the trouble this caused for his wife and their unborn baby.  What would she do now?  What kind of father could he possibly be in here?  What kind of husband?  What kind of human being?

He collapsed and sobbed for everything lost, with the perpetual mental drain of the Dementors in the background.


End file.
